Colour Management Monitors in the soft proofing workflow

It is well known within the printing and design industries that a fully digital workflow and the ability to carry out “soft proofing” in the print media arena, leads to higher work efficiency, shortened deadlines and reduced costs. It is now also common practice to switch to space-saving, flat panel LCD monitors, but many are hesitant to change because of the concerns surrounding the colour accuracy required for professional colour work.

In a colour controlled print process, the quality of the ‘soft proof’ is crucially important. People often assume that what they see on the monitor is the exact representation of what will be produced by the printer, but reality states this will only occur if the correct equipment and software is used.

In practice, because colours are device-dependent, they tend to be displayed differently on different devices. This has led to a demand for a way of managing colours between devices that provide uniformity of colour, thereby improving the efficiency of the overall workflow by reducing or eliminating the colour adjustments that have to be made at each step of the process.

Monitors used for checking colours in the printing workflow, known as "colour management monitors," are used to display the job at the completion of each workflow step so the colours can be checked. The current EIZO ColorEdge series monitors, for example, have been used as colour management monitors in some workflow steps, primarily in publishing and newspaper companies.

The single most important requirement in a monitor used for colour checking is the ability to reproduce colours as accurately as possible. For example, the colour red encompasses a wide range of different tones and hues, including dark red, pale red, yellowish red, etc. A key consideration is the extent to which the monitor can accurately display the many different tones and intensities of red. It is self-evident that the larger the colour space that can be represented and the higher the level of precision, the more colours that can be displayed and the greater the accuracy.

Compared to CRT monitors, LCD’s tend to display colours differently when viewed from certain angles. If an ordinary LCD screen is used for colour graphic work, colours will appear pale and washed out when viewed from an angle, leading to serious problems, especially in a soft proofing workflow. An ideal colour management monitor used for detailed colour checking should restrict colour variations caused by the viewing angle to an absolute minimum.

The environment within which a designer works in is also critical for the colours to show true on the monitor, even if a top specification monitor is used, the surrounding environment and light will affect the colours on the screen. When viewing images on a monitor, any fluctuations in the brightness or colour tones on the monitor will cause the images to look different each time they are viewed, even when the same images are displayed. If the conditions for editing and viewing digital images are not rigidly controlled, the subtlest of changes in colour, brightness, and contrast displayed on the monitor may be impossible for the human eye to distinguish. It is therefore important to take careful consideration of elements such as natural sunlight when setting up the work desk for the monitor.

At present, when a monitor image is compared with the printed image, important factors such as the printing paper, inks and ambient light are not necessarily always constant. There are currently many such variable factors, including small variations in the paper colour, changes to the inks and slight fluctuations in the ambient lighting. The capacity to adjust the colour management monitor in response to these slight variations would surely further improve the flexibility of the system.

Specifically, a colour management monitor should allow for detailed adjustments to the paper whiteness, the black levels and brightness, and to colour temperature and gamma.

In order to realise the advantages of soft proofing, a colour management system for sharing accurate colours among photographers, graphic artists and printers is a necessity. The most efficient way to achieve this is for all parties to use a standardised colour space with a wide range of colours. For example the best colour right monitors such as the EIZO ColorEdge CG221 now makes it possible to adopt the Adobe RGB extended colour space, which has become the de facto standard for professional colour processing. It ensures guaranteed colour reproduction across all digital platforms, providing a colour management environment that fully supports soft proofing, from the photography stage to final CMYK printing.

You can calibrate your display with various software solutions; however, the most reliable way is to purchase a piece of colour calibration hardware that sits on your display and physically reads the colours it is displaying against known colour values. The ultimate solution is a monitor that interfaces directly with the calibrator with specialisist software, such as the EIZO developed ColorNavigator software, and automatically sets itself to your target brightness, white point and gamma values.